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Automatic Jack
Jack is the partner of Bobby Quine. He is the hardware expert of the pair. Description He is "the mean-looking guy" of the pair. Like Bobby he is frugal and is happy to have the rent covered and a clean shirt to wear. He doesn't think high of the youths who are fascinated with simstim stars and surgical boutiques. Augmentations Out of his amputated arm carbon studs stick out, onto which he jacks his myoelectric arm, sheathed by a carbon-fiber laminate. The elbow joint is black and anodized and it ends to perforated Duraluminium fingers. It also has feedback pads, obviously for sensing. The studs also receive lead clips that are connected to a waldo. He feels a little funny when a stranger sees him working that way. When he drums his fingers, the servos in the hand whine like insects, a sound that the Finn hates. When he feels fear, the arm convulses and clicks. Background It is suggested that Jack participated in the War; he was in Kiev, hang-gliding over a wheatfield at nighttime, under a Nightwing parafoil, with 50 kgs of radar jammed between his legs. Then a Russian accidentally burned his arm off with a laser, amputating him. Jack met Bobby around the end of The War. They partnered as freelance hackers, living in a loft but they never messed with "the Boys". He had rebuilt Bobby's Ono-Sendai VII almost from scratch. Together they hanged out in the Gentleman Loser. It seems that he was also old friends with the Finn who would make him bargains in sake of this. One time Bobby was hired to open a 3" window in someone's ICE and was paid well. After his love interest abandoned him, he afforded to visit the House of the Blue Lights one night, although the bouncers didn't like him; he got drunk and started Vasopressin inhalers. He started joking to the barman, calling the customers "closet necrophiliacs". The large character calling him "War Hero" which he didn't like. He showed him some tricks with the mechanical arm until early in the morning. He woke up 2 days later on a narrow foam slab in a cheap, basic sleeing module somewhere else. He sat there and cried. Bio He was working late in the loft one night, shaving down a chip with the waldo when Bobby came with a girl he just met. Rikki looked at his work without saying anything, which he appreciated. He realized that he should leave them alone, and put his arm back on. Rikki asked him if he could fix the broken hinge on the cassette cover of her simstim deck. He called for a taxi for a dingy hotel room, hoping that Bpbby's new "fortune cookie" would bring them luck and strike it rich. One night all three sat in the GL and she asked Jack how he lost his arm. Bobby told her the story and Jack felt like changing the subject. Jack felt that what Bobby was doing with Rikki, how he used her as as a symbol of inspiration and motivation, was getting to him. He was continuously telling to Jack how much he loved her. One humid, hot and stormy afternoon, Bobby left them alone. Jack was standing by the bench looking up at the blue and dark sky, stupid with the humidity, when she touched his scar on the shoulder. Instead of going to the neck, her hand went down to his mechanical arm, and her fingers locked to his. They ended up on Bobby's bed. A week later he went to New York to find new software and visited the Finn in Metro Holografix. The Finn first tried to sell him a 408 Tactical, but later sold him a mysterious stolen cartridge in a good price, without knowing what it is. He returned to the loft one afternoon, where Bobby had left a lit monitor showing the pattern of an ICE. He set the program on his vise, ran a tool check and picked up the laser. After 3 hours and 4 dozen taps, 2 hours call a contact in Colorado who sold him a readout, and 3 more hours perusing a lexicon disc that could translate old technical Russian, he understood that it is a military-grade icebreaker. He sat thinking what to do about it, even selling it without Bobby knowing, and leaving with Rikki, when he slept dreaming of the program as a shapeless and flowing animal. Then Bobby returned and continued studying the ICE pattern on the monitor, telling that it is Chrome's, panicking Jack. He told him to dump it and forget all about it, as they shouldn't touch the Boys. Bobby seemed crazy and Jack suggested to buy him a tube to Miami, Montego Bay and rest. Bobby convinced him however that they can live for a year with a week of her negative interest, and that he would do it for Rikki. Without telling him of the Russian program, he met Rikki at a cafe, while browsing magazines to decide what eyes to buy. Tiger was with them, enthusiastic for his new Sendai eyes. Jack criticized him, saying how vain and dangerous it is, but Rikki told him to spare the lecture and that she wants to buy expensive Zeiss Ikons for herself. He walked her to the loft, and made 15 calls from different pay phones, seeking information, very discreetly for a non-aligned money laundry to dry-clean their online cash transfer. For the next 6 weeks they set the attack. All that time Bobby continuously told her how he loved Rikki, and Jack worked even harder to escape it. He wasn't sure why he went along with Bobby, as he was too scared and was half-certain they'd be killed; and unlike Bobby he didn't need to get that rich. He pretended to do it because of his earlier bad experience in the Blue Lights. The initial phonecalls led him to exponentially more phonecalls and they were going broke from the bills. He went once more to the Finn to buy a new blackbox rig; telling about his problem in a hypothetical manner, the Finn redirected him to the Long Hum family of stockbrokers in Macao. category:hackers category:Sprawl characters category:Burning Chrome